Who says casual sex is soulless?

CityKat is on leave. While she's away, we'll be posting a series of guest posts.

It’s not unusual to be a fan of sex. There are those among us who don’t feel desire, or who aren’t having sex that satisfies, but as a rule most of the humans on this here planet seem to agree that when the circumstances are right, sex is pretty rad. Things only really get contentious when it comes to just which circumstances are the right ones.

For my part, I’ve got what many might consider 'lax' criteria. I’m not just keen on sex, I am capital P Pro-promiscuity. I am casual’s cheerleader. I like my friends with benefits and my parties with near-strangers getting naked. I am a connoisseur of not only the committed coupling, but also the short-term fling and the impromptu hook-up.

Casual sex needs all the defenders it can get, because it takes a lot of heat. It seems to me that the problem a lot of people have with casual sex – that is, with other people engaging in it - isn’t truly about anything concrete, like say foetuses or chlamydia (by the way kids, seriously now, use a condom). Instead, it’s more a kind of amorphous discomfort; a sense that casual sex is a sign of a society in moral decay. It’s an activity that is accused of being meaningless – if not downright hostile – and intrinsically so. I get the impression that for many, the image that comes to mind is one of two dead-eyed, alcohol-numbed Gen Y-ers masturbating into each other while mentally composing some narcissistic status update to tap out on Facebook afterwards.

But friends, I’ve got quite a lot of experience under my belt, so I feel qualified to tell you that there is no necessary link between the permanence of a sexual relationship and the meaning level of any given sexual encounter within it. Casual sex can, of course, be meaningless and unpleasant. And it is unlikely to be quite so meaningful as the tenth time you made love to your now-spouse. But it doesn’t have to be grim. It is most decidedly not one of the fundamental laws of physics that as promiscuity increases you hollow out until you are but a soulless shell. Having performed this feat more than once, I’m able to guarantee to you that it is perfectly possible to have sex with someone you don’t know very well and possibly won’t see ever again, all the while viewing them positively, treating them with kindness and wishing them every happiness.

How can this be so? What framework might we bring to bear to understand this phenomenon of people rubbing their bits together while neither getting married nor hating each others’ guts? My theory is that, essentially, sex itself is just some friction that often feels nice. It doesn’t have any intrinsic meaning or morality. Its meaning isn’t a matter of mechanics and it doesn’t follow a simple, single formula. Instead, what gives a sexual encounter its meaning are the feelings, thoughts and interpretations of the people involved in it. So sex just means whatever it means to the participants. The logical result of this is that married sex, fling sex, sex-party sex… all of them can have, or lack, a whole range of different meanings, good and bad.

Advertisement

Hey, hey you there! Before you hit Caps Lock and start your comment, give me another minute to make myself perfectly clear. I’m not saying you, yourself, personally, should embrace hook-ups with anywhere near my level of enthusiasm. If you really, really love your husband, and for you that means you don’t want to touch any other penises, ever, I think that’s just peachy. All I’m saying is that I don’t think you should let anyone tell you what the sex you have – casual or otherwise – means for you. I reckon we all get to work out or decide for ourselves whether the sex we have makes us feel used or celebrated, whether we see our partners as props or as people, and whether this whole sex thing is a miracle or a tragedy.

One of my most recent random sexual encounters occurred on a hotel room bed in regional Spain, with a recently divorced Lutheran pastor from America, who I just met that day on a mountain-top. Neither of us had dead eyes. I didn’t feel bored or mean or empty. I knew he liked me - cared about me, even – and that I liked him too. I felt good in my pants, but I also felt good as in I had the warm fuzzies, because I knew I was giving pleasure to someone that hadn’t had it in a while. It’s not like I’m going to marry the guy, but I’m not going to forget him either. Meaningless? Not for me.

As well as commissioning a series of guest posts while CityKat is away, brisbanetimes.com.au is also going to select one reader entry for publication. Email your submissions through to scoop@brisbanetimes.com.au with CK GUEST BLOG in the subject line. Our editorial team will take a look and select a reader entry for publication.